The Terracotta Army is part of a large mausoleum estate left by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BCE). As the first emperor he was progressive in many ways. He standardised the unit of measurement and currency, but he was also an oppressive tyrant and killed to have his way. He also seemed strangely obsessed by death and started building himself a huge mausoleum within a decade of his reign starting.
To build the mausoleum he first created a village, populated it and then started construction. The whole site is massive. It consists of his burial mound and a palace-worth of items to help him continue to reign in the after life. So he had actual life size replica courts, stables, armouries, kitchen stores, livestock and even ponds with wildlife to assist him with this. 1.5 km away he built a Terracotta Army to protect his after-life community. And this is today the main attraction. However, when he built it, they were very much the side show! The rest is yet to be unearthed.
We arrived at the Terracotta Army at 0850 today to find the entrance area heaving, as we’d expected. We started with educating ourselves (well, me - JC most knows most of this stuff as this is his 2nd visit) in the exhibition centre where you could get up close and personal with many of the treasures.
We then tackled (yes, that's the right word) the pits, of which there are 3. At JC's advice we did them in reverse order as Pit 1 is the best so we worked up to it. It also got us used to the pushing and shoving which came with the vast number of tourists.
Pit 3 is the smallest and has a selection of warriors in a meeting-like room.
Pit 2 is still very much a work in progress. The pits were originally covered in wooden beams which is the striatum we saw. To date they have unearthed 116 warriors and continue to excavate horses, chariots and more warriors as they go. Looks to be a painstaking job not only discovering them but then working solving the mystery of which bit belongs to whom.
Pit 1 is the most spectacular due to its size and number of warriors it contains. They believe there are over 6000 here and they’ve unearthed 2000 of them so far.
The warriors all face east. The front 3 rows are the archers. None of the weapons remain as the wood has rotted. Then there are the horses and carts/coaches followed by the main marching army.
It was heaving. Each tour group had a guide, flag and about 20 followers all with colour coordinated lanyards or caps. We learnt to time our dash for a spot by the railings by waiting about 3/4 minutes whilst the guide explained the scene then we’d push our way to the front. Chinese have no compunction about pushing and shoving so we went with the flow. I did grump only the once, as a lady was determined to have my spot even though I was still in it. “Let me get out first!” I exclaimed in English (which had no effect except to make me feel a little better).
We spent the whole day at the army. We took it steadily and managed two coffee stops and a lunch break. I even found a sweetcorn cob to eat.
At 1600 we went back into pit 1 and there was certainly more elbow room even if I still wasn’t swinging cats. I was fascinated by the building area. They really do start with a pile of pottery, which they suspect is all of the same person/horse - but it's painstaking work for sure. They build the bodies first them lie them down to attach the legs and head.
Everyone has a label.
There are certainly puzzles to complete. The warriors are not identical - there are various hairstyles and clothing used across the army.
And I took the photo just because I could! No idea what I wasn't meant to be photographing - I think it was the horse reconstruction zone.
We started the evening with a free beer in the Belgian bar attached to our hotel. It was a freebie for staying there but I felt they owed us that and more for keeping us awake so much with their karaoke. JC had a fancy latte with a tassle.
We headed south back to the Big Wild Goose pagoda to watch a free light show. We bagged a decent spot an hour before it started. It started gently with pleasant music and a voice over. As it was in Chinese it was wasted on us. It was probably a Chinese tale, but could have been the communist manifesto, but whatever it was it went on a long time and those around me started watching food clips on their phones. [An aside: food videos are a big thing here and you see loads of people watching cooking programmes, not to mention they are broadcast on screens on the plane and metros.]
After 10 minutes the mood changed and, hurrah, it really got going. This was more like it - flashing lights, fountains spouting - a fun 25 minutes in all.
We ate in the first place we entered which is a first for us here. The noodle place served veg dishes so I munched bamboo shoots and spinach while JC had a noodle dish of sorts. Then we metro’d up to the Bell Tower. It was beautifully lit up. I was also very amused by the underground pedestrian roundabout under the tower, built to assist movement of people coming in/out of the metro. I think over the course of our stay in Xi'an we'd managed to enter and leave every single numbered exit which greatly pleased me.
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